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+--- Thread: Contextual Endeavors (/thread-29.html)
Contextual Endeavors - Ed Hurst - 01-26-2018
Today I watched a brief video of kids engaging in hip-hop dancing expositions. Nothing wrong with that, but it provoked a question: Are any of these kids so deeply invested in this narrow art form that they would struggle to adapt if it was suddenly out of fashion? Can you remember Disco -- the very narrowly tailored music and costumes? Most professional performers know better than to be just a one-trick pony. How many performers aren't professionally employed because they can't do more than this one thing they do best?
More broadly, I wonder how many ordinary people around us are so completely invested in their current lifestyle that their lives would crumble if things changed much. I think about this because I'm convinced our current social context will most certainly change, and is already changing even now. I've watched a few people who, from where I view things, seem to have come apart because their personal financial situation degraded suddenly. You would think that their whole personal identity depended entirely on the situation. There is someone rather close to me who increasingly gets very agitated because their Utopia wasn't permanent.
Sometimes I feel like I'm working in hospice care as I help our society go through the death process. This will become a major element in the exercise of our faith in the coming days. I'd rather not see people's souls die prior to their bodies simply because they cannot imagine life outside their brief window of time in a certain social context. But I know I'm going to see it.
RE: Contextual Endeavors - jaybreak - 01-27-2018
I have personal experience with that contextual enterprise, since I was involved with metal bands throughout my 20's and a little into my 30's. I have the scars to prove it: lots of tattoos, holes in my ears where gauges used to me. None of that takes up my life any more. I don't regret anything but I have next to no interest in any of it these days. Despite that, it's still a positive part of who I am, not to mention a big, direct part of my spiritual growth.
I know that's not really the thrust of your post here. Just thought I'd share.
RE: Contextual Endeavors - Ed Hurst - 01-27-2018
It's tangential. From the personal angle, we invest ourselves in things that seem important. Having no regrets is a good sign, but I can recall thinking a couple of times something ephemeral I was doing was going to change the world. These days I recall the feeling better than I recall what it was that consumed so much of me.